Windows – What kind of “personalisation” does sysprep remove exactly

Sysprep is really for corporate environments in creating an image for automated Windows installations that allows unique SIDs to be created. This is critical in Active Directory domains as logins and SIDs are tied together. Outside of Active directory, sysprep is not extremely useful.

If you want to use sysprep at home, there's really no point as it won't give you any real benefits, unless you run AD at home (doubtful). Sysprep is meant for system administrators, not end-users.

Wikipedia has a shorter, succint explaination here (link).

FTA:

Desktop deployment is typically performed via disk cloning applications. Sysprep can be used to prepare an operating system for disk cloning and restoration via a disk image. Windows operating system installations include many unique elements per installation that need to be "generalized" before capturing and deploying a disk image to multiple computers.

Some of these elements include:

• Computer name
• Security Identifier (SID)
• Driver Cache

Sysprep seeks to solve these issues by allowing for the generation of new computer names, unique SIDs, and custom driver cache databases during the Sysprep process. Administrators can use tools such as SetupMgr.exe (Windows XP) or System Image Manager (Windows Vista) to generate answer files that Sysprep will process on new computer deployments.

Edit: Essentially, you cannot clone one machine (system disk) and re-image numerous other computers as the SIDs will all be the same. Sysprep allows admins to dynamically generate unique SIDs as part of the sysprep deployment, which is something a simple disk-imaging tool cannot do. If you have more than 2 computers that need to be prepped for a Windows Active Directory domain (or possibly workgroup), sysprep is the way to go.

You didn't specify why you were looking at sysprep or to what ends you hoped to accomplish. Could you elaborate on why sysprep is of interest to you?

Operations like these have always been dicey since 3rd Party programs can scatter their settings where ever they wish. So hunting down those settings without the use of the program's own installer is tricky.

An interesting but not bulletproof method I've used a few times is the Windows Easy Transfer, which is like a little brother of the "more complicated to setup" Microsoft USMT tool.

There are other options like the popular LapLink.

The How-To Geek has typed a good guide to Windows Easy Transfer. I copied the instructions without screenshots.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3157/migrate-xp-to-windows-7-with-easy-transfer-over-the-network/

Migrate XP to Windows 7 with Easy Transfer Over the Network

If you get a new computer with Windows 7 and your current machine is running XP, the thought of transferring your files and settings can be quite daunting. Microsoft has created a program called Windows Easy Transfer that is already included in Vista and can be download for XP and 2000. Here we will take a look at the process of using it to transfer files and settings from an XP machine to the new Windows 7.

Starting with the Windows 7 machine open the Start menu and go to Getting Started and under Tasks click “Transfer your files”.

Click through the welcome screen and choose the method for transferring the data…in this demo we’ll use a network connection.

Next select that this is the new computer.

The next screen click on “I need to install it now”.

Choose a network or external drive to install the latest version of Easy Transfer. If you use a flash drive a freshly formatted one is recommended as it installs Windows Easy Transfer like a portable app which runs directly from the drive.

The next screen prompts you to go to the old computer, start up Easy Transfer and run through the wizard until you get a transfer key.

Now on the XP machine run Easy Transfer from you flash drive.

A progress screen will be displayed while it starts up and produces the transfer key.

Enter in the transfer key from the old machine on the new Windows 7 and hit Next.

It will scan the old computer and determine what can and cannot be transferred over.

When done you can select the general settings and files from all the accounts on the machine.

Click on Advanced to get a detailed explorer view so you can specifically select what to transfer over. When you’ve decided what to transfer then click Save and then transfer it over. The amount of time it takes will depend on how much you’re transferring, speed of the network, etc.

When it is all complete you can view the transfer and program report which shows the files and settings transferred and also what programs are or are not compatible with Windows 7.

To finish the process a Restart is required.

Windows Easy Transfer can be downloaded for XP and Windows 2000 from their site but you might want to use the process shown above as it supplies the latest version of Windows Easy Transfer. We ran into a problem with running the downloaded version which was installed on XP and was not compatible with the Windows 7 version.

Not all programs and settings are going to transfer to your new OS but this definitely makes it easier